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Obama Addresses Health Care, Other Issues on Talk Radio Show; U.S. Victims' Families, Government Object to Pan Am 103 Bomber's Release; Paterson, N.J. Considers Temporary Nighttime Curfew for All Residents
Aired August 20, 2009 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Drew, thanks.
We're pushing forward. Town hall meets talk radio. President Obama hits the airwaves, pitching health-care reform to a conservative audience. It starts in minutes, and you'll hear it live right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Nobody says democracy is easy. But don't complain to Afghans about touch screens and butterfly ballots. A country at war holds a historic election.
And the outrage begins over Scotland's release of the only man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. He's gone home, to Libya, to die.
Hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips, live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
All week long, President Obama's kept a pretty low profile in the health-care fight, but that's about to change. Minutes from now he'll join conservative radio talk show host Michael Smerconish for a call- in forum, live from the White House. You'll see it right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
And later in the hour, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks out from San Francisco. As the president did yesterday by phone, Pelosi is reaching out to religious leaders to try and push forward on reform.
Next hour finds Mr. Obama at Democratic Party headquarters for a virtual town hall sponsored by party activists.
You know it's a make-or-break month when the White House opens its doors to talk radio. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux sets the stage for us now.
Now, Suzanne, how did this come about, and how unusual is this?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting, because obviously, President Obama is really trying to reach out to the critics. He's gone to these town-hall meetings. They've been very friendly. The questions have not really been all that provocative. He has even asked for some tough questions, and he hasn't gotten it over the last couple of weeks. So what he's trying to do is -- essentially he is throwing himself right in the lion's den, if you will, to take on some of those critics. He is going to be in this kind of talk radio format. The host, Michael Smerconish, is going to open up the lines, basically, for his listeners to ask the president questions, some of those tough questions. It should be very fascinating to see what they have to say.
One of the reasons, Robert Gibbs says, that he's doing this is because this is a very popular talk show, and he wants to knock down what they believe is misinformation, the kinds of false stories that are coming out of the health-care reform that he wants to talk about, and he wants to address.
PHILLIPS: And Suzanne -- Suzanne, apparently right now, we're looking at live pictures. The president and Smerconish just sat down at the Mikes. We're being told that he's asking the president to autograph a picture for Smerconish's daughter, I guess, 11-year-old daughter. Oh, son. OK, 11-year-old son.
So, all right, he's asking the president...
MALVEAUX: Well, he's got one fan. He's got one fan in the group.
PHILLIPS: Let's hope he's objective here, you know. If he's asking for autographed pictures already, I want to make sure, you know, this is a very well-balanced discussion.
MALVEAUX: Well, we do know that Smerconish, he's based out of Philadelphia, and he did support and endorse Obama as a candidate, so this is somebody who, yes, has been critical, but he has also supported him.
So, it might not be necessarily the super critics, the kinds of people, quite frankly, that you see with those signs that are comparing him to Hitler and some of the other things that we've seen on the far right and some of those other more extreme elements. But certainly, this is somebody who's going to go ahead and try to ask some tough questions.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to go ahead and listen in. Thanks, Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Sure.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Then we can focus on the areas of legitimate debate.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Great. I'm all about having the dialogue.
OBAMA: Absolutely.
SMERCONISH: So I don't think if the earpiece is going to be necessary, because I think they'll probably play in the room those calls.
OBAMA: I know that they're going to play them. If I can't hear the first one well, I'll put the earpiece in, all right?
SMERCONISH: OK. I'll ask you a question or two just to get things -- to get things rolling.
OBAMA: Sounds good. My understanding is, I think, we're going to do about ten minutes on the front end and then -- and then the questions...
SMERCONISH: Mix it up. Mix it up a little bit.
OBAMA: That sounds fine.
SMERCONISH: They've been awfully patient.
OBAMA: This is your show.
SMERCONISH: Thank you. Also it's sort of a surreal environment for a guy like me to be seated here...
OBAMA: Me, too.
SMERCONISH: ... in this room. Understanding the history and what has taken place.
OBAMA: It's remarkable. I don't know if you guys have had a chance to take a tour, but you should after you get packed up.
SMERCONISH: I think I'll need to put it all together later and sort of decompress what has gone on here.
OBAMA: Take a look at the West Wing. You can go up on the first floor, you know, famous pictures of, you know, that painting of Kennedy where he's looking down and, you know, it -- it gives you a real sense of history.
We're doing a few repairs over on the walkway, the colonnade to the West Wing, but, you know, you walk along the Rose Garden and you can see the ramp at the end that was built by FDR and...
SMERCONISH: Have you settled in? I mean, has it finally hit you, the gig's yours?
OBAMA: You know, the truth is, is that you're moving so (AUDIO GAP) you basically have a lot of work in front of you. And so the good thing is the family settled in quicker than I expected.
The staff here is wonderful. And they made Michelle and the girls really feel at home. And the girls' adjustment to school was better than I expected. So, they're gone this week. But they seem to be doing great.
SMERCONISH: My boys wanted me to ask you. They saw the movie "National Treasure II," and they know that you've been provided the Book of Secrets.
OBAMA: I have.
SMERCONISH: And they wanted to know which of the secrets most impressed you.
OBAMA: I would -- I would tell you, but I'd have to kill you. So...
SMERCONISH: Right. I get the impression you've seen the movie, too.
OBAMA: Absolutely. And I don't want you messing with my resolute desk with all the gizmos and gadgets. So...
SMERCONISH: A big show open coming in just a minute. Hopefully, it won't be too loud for you.
OBAMA: How are you? Is this your producer?
SMERCONISH: Yes, sir. That's T.C. (ph). She's terrific.
OBAMA: How are you? Nice to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Nice to be here.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER: Broadcasting from the cradle of liberty, this is "The Michael Smerconish Program!"
SMERCONISH: Everybody, welcome back to the program. I'm Michael Smerconish. What an honor for me to say I'm live at the White House, and I'm joined by the president of the United States.
Mr. President, what an honor for me, and thank you, sir, for this privilege, and thank you for coming back to my radio program.
OBAMA: Michael, it's great to be on the show again. Every time we've been on, it's been a great time. So, I appreciate the opportunity.
SMERCONISH: Folks are stacked up, as you might imagine. They're anxious to pose some questions about health care to the president of the United States. More than 5,000 e-mail suggestions have flown through my Web site in just the last 24 hours alone.
If it's all right, I'll start by posing a couple of questions, and some of the things that I continue to hear from folks, and we'll welcome phone callers, as well.
Allow me, sir, to begin with this -- did Secretary Sebelius misspeak last weekend? You know, a great deal's been made as to what she said pertaining to the so-called public option.
OBAMA: She really didn't misspeak. The surprising thing is she'd been saying this all along. She said the same thing a month ago.
And let me just describe what the issue is here. We have consistently talked about the need for health-care reform, because family premiums are going up three times faster than inflation and wages. The cost of Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt this country if we don't reduce the cost inflation of health care. You've got families who can't get health care because of pre-existing conditions, or they bump up against some lifetime cap if a family member gets really ill.
So, what we've said is there are a number of components of health care. One is that, for people who already have health insurance, they can keep their health insurance, but we're going to have some consumer protections to regulate how insurers operate. For example, they can't prohibit people from getting health insurance because of a pre- existing condition. They can't have lifetime caps or yearly caps that prevent people from getting the care that they need.
We're also going, for people who don't have health insurance, to set up a system, similar to what Congress has, where you can buy into a bigger pool, get better rates, have better protections around you. You would be buying that insurance from private insurers.
But one of the options we talked about was a public option, where they wouldn't be a profit motive involved; it would be not for profit. And that public option would give you affordable health insurance. Now, what we've said is we think that's a good idea. But we haven't said that that's the only aspect of health insurance.
And what she essentially said was -- is that all these other insurance reforms are just as important as the public option. The press got a little excited, and some folks on the left got a little excited about this. Our position hasn't changed.
We think that the key is cost control, competition, making sure that people have good, quality options. If we're able to achieve that, that's the end that we're seeking. And the means, you know, we can have some good arguments about what the best way to achieve it is, but we've got to change, because the status quo is unacceptable.
SMERCONISH: Mr. President, that's a mindset among many folks in my audience who say that the end game, it's all about single payer. That it's a public option or it's a cooperative.
And, sir, you know that there's a perception out there that you want it all. You know, you want to be in the banks. You want to be in the automotive industry, and now you want to be in health care. Can you address that mindset?
OBAMA: I absolutely can. First of all, look, the intervention in the banks wasn't started by me. It was started by a conservative Republican administration, and rightly so, because our banks were on the verge of meltdown. The only thing that we've done is said, "Let's put in place some financial regulations to make sure that this doesn't happen again." The auto interventions weren't started by me. They were started by a conservative Republican administration. The only thing that we did was, rather than just write GM and Chrysler a blank check, we said, "You know what? If you're going to get any more taxpayer money, you've got to be accountable." They went through a record bankruptcy, and now GM for the first time is actually hiring folks back.
So, I know that there's this perception that somehow we have engaged in these extraordinary interventions. Part of it had to do with the worst financial crisis in history. And the fact that both the auto bailout and the bank bailout were started under a previous, conservative Republican administration, indicates the fact that this wasn't ideological. This was a matter of necessity.
Now, as far as health care goes, I've consistently said I would love the private marketplace to be handling this without any government intervention. The problem is it's not working.
What we're seeing is about 14,000 folks lose their health insurance every single day. We are seeing health-care inflation go up about twice as fast as regular inflation. Businesses are being crippled by it. Small businesses, especially, have almost no access to the marketplace, because they've got no leverage with insurance companies.
So, all we've said is, "Let's keep the private system intact, but let's make sure that people who right now can't get health insurance -- about 46 million -- that they're able to buy into the market."
And, No. 2, let's have some consumer protections to make sure that those of us who have health insurance don't end up getting a bad deal, because we didn't read the fine print and we think that we have coverage. When we finally get sick and we need it, it turns out that we're vulnerable, because insurance companies aren't operating in the interests of their customers.
SMERCONISH: I'd like to drive an MDX and an F-150.
OBAMA: Right.
SMERCONISH: And I've communicated by e-mail in the last 24 hours with the woman who sold me the MDX and the guy who sold me the F-150.
OBAMA: Right.
SMERCONISH: And each of them, Mr. President, are saying that Cash for Clunkers has been a great idea and a wonderful initiative and they closed a lot of deals, but the payments are late. And I'm hearing from a number of folks who say, "You know, come on. If the federal government can't get it together relative to Cash for Clunkers, I don't want to entrust my health care to the federal government."
OBAMA: Well, let me first address Cash for Clunkers. It has been successful beyond anybody's imagination. And we're now slightly victims of success, because the thing happened so quick, there was so much more demand than anybody expected, that dealers were overwhelmed with applications.
Now, this program's only been going on for a few weeks. And we have hired three times as many people to process this stuff as we originally had.
There has not been extraordinary delays on the U.S. government's part. I understand dealers want to get their money back as soon as possible. But the fact of the matter is, this is a good-news story. They are seeing sales that they have not seen in years. And they will get their money, but we've got to process it properly. Because if we were careless about it, if we were just sending out checks where applications were incomplete and so on, first of all, we'd be breaking the law, because there are statutes set up in terms of how this is supposed to go.
And, secondly, there would probably be some story -- you'd be -- you'd be asking be about scandals where there were a whole bunch of checks of taxpayer money being wasted going out to people who hadn't actually bought cars.
So, you know, I think this is actually a high-class problem to have that we're selling too many cars too quickly and there's some backlog in the application process. It is getting fixed.
SMERCONISH: Mr. President, Ernie is a listener of mine on WTTK in Boston and wishes to pose the following question. Ernie, go ahead to the president of the United States.
CALLER: Thank you, Michael. Mr. President...
OBAMA: How are you, Ernie?
CALLER: I'm good. Thank you for taking this call.
OBAMA: Great to talk to you.
CALLER: I understand you've said that the federal health-care plan for government employees is a pretty good plan.
OBAMA: It is.
CALLER: And Congress has voted, to my understanding, not to join the public plan once it passes, because they want to keep their good federal plan. Would you be willing to either urge Congress to have the federal employees join the public plan, or would you be willing to urge Congress to somehow open up the federal health plan to all Americans?
SMERCONISH: Thank you, Ernie. I hear this all the time, Mr. President.
OBAMA: Well, it's a great question, Ernie. First of all, understand that currently federal employees have a very good health- care plan, because they're able to leverage the insurance companies. There's so many members of their -- of the federal workforce, that they can get the best rates possible. Every insurance company wants to do business with the federal government. So, premiums are lower, and it's a better deal overall.
The same concept is what we're trying to do in setting up what's called a health insurance exchange. Essentially, it would be a marketplace where people who currently don't have health insurance, or small businesses, could pool their numbers, so they have leverage over the insurance companies. And they could go on a Web site and look at the various options and types of various private health insurance plans that are being offered, and choose the one that's best for their families.
So, we're actually trying to duplicate what exists for federal employees. We want to make that available to everybody else.
Now, what we have said is, let's make a public option one choice of many choices that are available to people who are joining the exchange. And I see nothing wrong with potentially having that public option as one option for federal employees, as well.
But the important thing that I think I have to make absolutely clear, nobody would be obligated to choose the public option. If you went on that Web site and you said, "You know what? Aetna or Blue Cross/Blue Shield are offering a good deal, and I would rather choose that plan than the public plan," you'd be perfectly free to do so. Nobody would be saying, "You are obligated to go into a public plan."
SMERCONISH: I think what folks are saying is that that they'd love it if you'd stand up and say, "Whatever it is that we're creating, be it a co-op, be it a public option, whatever name ultimately might be ascribed to it, we in the executive branch, we in the Congress, we will live with exactly these parameters."
OBAMA: I think -- I think there would be -- I think it would make perfect sense for us to make the public option available to federal employees, as well. But keep in mind, it would just be a choice.
SMERCONISH: Understood. Let me keep moving, if I may.
Tracy listens on WXNT, News Talk 1430 in Indianapolis.
Tracy, your question for the president?
CALLER: Hi, Mr. President. Thanks for taking my call.
OBAMA: Hi, Tracy.
CALLER: Hi. Until I heard you say that a private option is just a sliver of your health-care proposal recently, I think myself and many Americans thought that pretty much was your ultimate goal.
OBAMA: I know.
CALLER: But my question is, could you please quickly list five or six bullet points of what legislation must include for you be willing to sign it? For instance, employer mandates...
OBAMA: Right.
CALLER: ... tort reform, illegal immigrants, what about them, must include a public option.
OBAMA: I'd be happy to. First of all, you mentioned illegal immigrants. This has been an example of just pure misinformation out there. None of the bills that have been voted on in Congress and none of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants. None of them. That has never been on the table. Nobody has discussed it.
So, everybody who's listening out there, when you start hearing that somehow this is all designed to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants, that is simply not true and has never been the case.
SMERCONISH: What their fate, if I might ask, because there's a 1986 law on the book that says if show up at an E.R., you've got to be treated?
OBAMA: Well, that will continue, because we don't want a situation in which some child, even if they're an illegal immigrant, shows up in an emergency room with tuberculosis, and nobody's giving them treatment, and then they're going back to the playground and playing next to our kids.
So, I think there's -- there is a basic standard of decency, where if somebody's in a death situation or a severe illness, that we're going to provide them emergency care.
But nobody has talked about providing health insurance to illegal immigrants. I want to make that absolutely clear.
Now, Tracy, you had a good point about what are the bullet points that I want.
No. 1, it's got to be deficit neutral. This has to be paid for. Because in the past, some of the health-care plans that we've put forward have not been paid for. A good example of this was the prescription drug benefit for seniors. That was an important thing to do, but we never actually figured out how to pay for it. That just went directly into the deficit and the national debt. We can't afford to do that. So, that would be point No. 1.
Point No. 2, it has to bend the cost curve. What that means is that we've got to create a plan that experts credibly say will reduce health care inflation. Because if all we're doing is adding more people but we're not controlling costs, that will blow up the deficit over the long term, and it will blow up the burdens on individual families and businesses. We've got to get control of our costs. We spend $6,000 more than any other advanced country per person on health care. That's No. 2.
No. 3, we've got to have the insurance reforms I talked about for people who already have health insurance. And that means making sure you can get health insurance even if you've got a pre-existing condition, making sure that you're not burdened by lifetime caps, making sure that insurance companies can't drop you just because you get sick or because you're older or because you're not as healthy. So, making sure that there are basic insurance protections, that's very important.
No. 4 is I want to make sure that we have a health exchange, as I just described, that is similar to what members of Congress have, where you will have a set of options. If you're a small business, if you're an individual, self-employed, you have trouble getting health insurance right now, you can go and look at a bunch of options, and we've got to make it affordable for middle-class families.
So, part of the plan has to be that, if you can't afford a market-based premium, that we're giving you a little bit of help and you're able to get health insurance.
Choice, competition, reducing costs, those are the things that I want to see accomplished in this health reform bill.
SMERCONISH: Where, Mr. President, does personal responsibility factor into all this? There was a front page story in "USA Today" recently that talked about obesity being the single most significant factor. I mean, you're a fit guy. How about rewarding those who get on a Stairmaster every day?
OBAMA: Well, the interesting thing is, you're already starting to see this happen among a lot of private companies.
Safeway, for example, is a company that has done a great job in helping encourage its employees to get fit, and they actually give them an incentive. They say, "Look, you're going to save 'X' amount on your insurance premiums -- you'll see that in your paycheck -- if you are taking steps to take care of yourself."
And I think that creating incentives like that for prevention, for wellness, you know, creating cash incentives for people who -- where it shows up, they're saving money on their health insurance because of it, I think that's something that should be part of this.
SMERCONISH: Mr. President, Joe listens to me at home base, which is the Big Talker, 1210 in Philadelphia.
Joseph, go ahead for the president of the United States.
CALLER: Thank you for taking my call, Mr. President.
OBAMA: Hey, Joe, how are you?
CALLER: Oh, I'm scared out of my mind talking to you here. I'm a supporter. I voted for you last year.
OBAMA: I appreciate you.
CALLER: And I'm getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are buckling a little bit. We have overwhelming majority in both House and the Senate. And you own the whole shooting match, and I'm just getting -- very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren't willing to compromise with you.
SMERCONISH: Are your knees buckling? That's his question.
OBAMA: Well, look, the -- I guarantee you, Joe, we are going to get health-care reform done. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been hand-wringing, and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process.
You know, passing a big bill like this is always messy. It's -- FDR was called a socialist when he passed Social Security. JFK and Lyndon Johnson, they were both accused of a government takeover health care when they passed Medicare.
This is the process that we go through. Because understandably, the American people have a long tradition of being suspicious of government, until the government actually does something that helps them, and then they don't want anybody messing with whatever gets set up.
And I'm confident we're going to get it done. And as far as negotiations with Republicans, my attitude has always been, let's see if we can get this done with some consensus. I would love to have more Republicans engaged and involved in this process.
I think early on a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, "Look, let's not give them a victory. Maybe we can have a replay of 1993-94 when Clinton came in. He failed on health care, and then we won in the midterm elections, and we got the majority." And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out of that playbook.
But this shouldn't be a political issue. This is an issue for the American people.
There are a bunch of Republicans out there who have been working very constructively. One of them, Olympia Snowe, in Maine, she's been dedicated on this. Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, others, they've been meeting in the Senate Finance Committee. I want to give them a chance to work through these processes. And we're happy to make sensible compromises.
What we're not willing to do is give up on the core principle that Americans who don't have health insurance should get it, that Americans who do have health insurance should get a better deal from insurance companies and have consumer protections. We've got to reduce health-care inflation so that everybody can keep the health care that they have. That's going to be my priorities. And I think we can get it done.
SMERCONISH: A bit off message. Today the Scots released the Lockerbie bomber due to -- I -- actually maybe it is health-care related. He's got terminal cancer. Your take on this? A lot of folks very offended over a perceived lack of justice.
OBAMA: We have been in contact with the Scottish government, indicating that we objected to this and we thought it was a mistake. We're now in contact with the Libyan government and want to make sure that if, in fact, this transfer has taken place, that he's not welcomed back in some way, but instead, should be under house arrest.
We've also obviously been in contact with the families of the Pan Am victims and indicated to them that we don't think this was appropriate.
SMERCONISH: Mr. President, in each of our prior three conversations, I spoke with you extensively about the need for closure, and we agreed, relative to bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
And as a matter of fact, and this is well-documented -- I've written and spoken about it extensively -- things that you said during the course of the campaign played a critical role in my personal decision-making pertaining to the 2008 election.
So I feel like I would be derelict in my duty if I couldn't come here today and say, where are we? I know we had a major victory recently with the No. 1 individual for the Taliban in those tribal regions, but pertaining to bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, where is it?
OBAMA: Well, here's where we're at. We are continuing to ramp up the pressure in Afghanistan. And we had a -- what appears to be a successful election in Afghanistan, despite the Taliban's efforts to disrupt it.
You've got General McChrystal now over there and more troops who are putting pressure on the eastern and southern portions of Afghanistan.
On the other hand, you've got the Pakistani army, for the first time, actually fighting in a very aggressive way. And that's how we took out Baitullah Mehsud...
SMERCONISH: Right.
OBAMA: ... the top Taliban leader in Pakistan, who was also one of bin Laden's key allies.
So, the goal here is essentially to have a pincer where we are squeezing them on both sides. We're eliminating their allies. It's making it more difficult for them to communicate. It's making it more difficult for them to operate safe havens. And over time, what we hope to do is to flush them out.
We are going to keep on putting pressure on them. And I know that it's at great cost. I mean, you know, I have to sign letters to family members who have fallen, and a lot more are falling in Afghanistan than in Iraq. And as a consequence, we've got to make sure that we are really focused on finishing the job in Afghanistan, but it's going to take some time.
SMERCONISH: Mr. President, Susan listens to WOR News Radio 710 in New York City.
Susan, go ahead for the president of the United States.
CALLER: Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for talking to us directly about this important issue.
OBAMA: Thank you, Susan.
CALLER: We all want reform. I guess it's really a matter of what the best solution is, and a lot of us feel that the federal government is just not equipped or it's their role to be getting involved in delivering health-care services.
And we're very concerned that most of the money will actually go, instead of taking care of people, it will go to, you know, the costs of administering a huge government bureaucracy.
Why not do something more like giving incentives to the states? Like here in New York, we already have free health care for people who can't afford it. And, you know, it should only be for people who can't afford it, not for the 20- and 30-somethings that, you know, choose to spend their money on SUVs and the latest electronics gadgets. And it's not free, because we all know that we're going to be paying for it, and it should be only for the people who can't really afford it.
And we want to have our own health-care decisions locally, and we don't want the federal government making those decisions for us.
SMERCONISH: Do you have a state solution here, Mr. President?
OBAMA: Well, look, first of all, Susan, I think that it's important to understand that part of the health-reform proposal that we've put forward would involve the states. The states, in some cases, would be empowered to expand Medicaid to cover more people, the same way that they've been able to cover more children under the Children's Health Insurance Program.
So, a sizable portion of the people who are currently uninsured would, in fact, be getting their insurance through the states. That's how the current Medicaid program is able to allow states to cover more people.
Keep in mind that nobody's talking about the government administering all of health care. What we're talking about here is a public option that people could sign up for, but in that situation, they'd have to operate like any private insurer. They'd have to be collecting premiums and so forth.
The track record for government administering health care actually is surprisingly good. Medicare, for example, a government program, has much lower administrative costs than private insurers do. Now, part of it is, is because they don't have -- either somebody's qualified or they're not. And so signing them up is a lot more automatic.
But that points to one of the big problems that we have. In private insurance, huge amounts of insurance companies are spending a lot of money and a lot of effort and a lot of staff just trying to cherry-pick people who are healthy and sign them up, and then eliminate people who are sick. And part of what we want to do here is just reform the system so that insurance companies are operating more fairly, to all people.
If you're young, actually, it's easier to get health insurance these days. The really tough population are folks who are from 50 to 64. Maybe they just got laid off. Maybe they're self-employed. They have a whale of a time trying to buy health insurance, and we want to make sure that there is a market for them.
Last point that I would make is that you mention the fact that a lot of young people opt out. One of the things that we would do under reform is to say if you -- if you want, you can stay on your health insurance, your parents' health insurance up to the age of 26. That would cover a lot of young people who, they fall in that gap. Their first job does not necessarily offer them insurance. It gives them a way of having coverage until they get that job that has a little bit more security.
SMERCONISH: You're needed across town. I appreciate very much the privilege of coming to the White House, Mr. President. Thank you so much for being on "The Michael Smerconish Program."
OBAMA: Mike, it's always a pleasure. And I want to thank all your listeners. Terrific questions. There's a great dialogue that takes place on this show, and I just hope that we can continue that dialogue in the same spirit to solve some of America's big problems.
SMERCONISH: Thank you, sir. I'll be back in just a moment from the White House.
PHILLIPS: Pretty historic moment there. Not only for us, but obviously for talk radio, and also for events at the White House. It's the first time we've seen something like this. We actually were expecting all the questions to mostly be about health care. But as you heard the president of the United States there with radio talk- show host Michael Merconish (sic), it was a mixture of questions, not only about health care, but also Afghanistan elections, the Lockerbie bombing, and the release of the one individual held accountable for that being released today because he is terminally ill, and he's headed back home to Libya.
Also questions about Cash for Clunkers. There were a number of questions about the economy. But that leads us to the question, of course, this was produced by the Smerconish show, so our guess is that they wanted to get a variety of topics there on that program with the president. But we'll talk about it with Suzanne -- we'll talk about that with Suzanne Malveaux in just a second there, live from the White House.
Meanwhile, Josh Levs been checking the facts, working the Truth Squad for us today. Josh, what do you have for us? You listened also to the past 30 minutes...
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
PHILLIPS: ... and what was a pretty unique event there at the White House. LEVS: It was very interesting, you know. And what I want to do is encourage people to follow up on that by reading the bills for yourself, the two that are readable right now, and also to see some of the fact-checking that's going on out there.
Let's zoom into the screen in behind me. There's one one-stop shop online for all of this. It's at CNN.com/healthcare. And when you get there, all you need to do is click on the fact-check link which is there. It brings you to the Truth Squad. And what we've been doing is following all sorts of topics here. So, you can see some of the latest from the Truth Squad.
You can also, you know, and we'll remind everyone, the bills are not in any kind of final form, but there is one from the House and there's one from the Senate that you can look at yourself if you want to go exploring and check out what's there. There's also something else I've done here at CNN.com/josh which is part of our NEWSROOM blog.
I have posted a bunch of links for you where you can get fact checks, reality checks all along here. If you just go to that one link, CNN.com/josh, you'll be able to see all of these links that do a lot of fact-checking. And you know, you have ours from the Truth Squad, which are important. I encourage you to check those out.
There's also some other groups that we're pointing to you -- factcheck.org, politifact.com. And, Kyra, what they're doing also is taking a look at some of the things that President Obama is saying, whether it's about how this will ultimately play out or about Medicare.
Between us and the Truth Squad and Factcheck and Politifact, you have a lot of really strong reality-checking going on. Anytime you hear anyone talk about this, just stop by those, and you'll get the facts -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Appreciate it, Josh.
LEVS: You got it.
PHILLIPS: Thanks so much.
Now let's take you back live to the White House. Suzanne Malveaux is listening to the last 30 minutes as well. A pretty unique town hall format there at the White House, Suzanne.
I guess all of us, we were thinking that this was going to be pretty much health care-based, but this was produced by Michael Smerconish and his team, so it looks like they -- and I'm assuming here, you got to kind of let me know how this all worked out and how it played out and how they selected the calls and the questions. But there were a number of items that they got in there, not just about health care, but about Afghanistan, the Lockerbie bombing and the release of the suspect today.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Absolutely. This is really kind of nationally based, broad-based. This is something the host wanted to expand beyond health care. We had asked whether or not it would just be health care. And Robert Gibbs, the spokesman, said that it really was the prerogative of the host, of the talk show host.
And so, he used that prerogative. It was interesting, because he did make news in some ways. We had been asking about the White House reaction, administration reaction to the Lockerbie bombings release. The president made it very clear, made it know that they're not just reaching out to the United Kingdom and Scottish authorities, but now are following up with Libya as well to make sure that this individual is under house arrest, that he is not welcomed in any kind of warm way. So, we'll see how that plays out, develops in the administration as well as in the State Department.
He was asked as well about national security issues. Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri, where they are, what is the status when it comes to the war on terror from the Bush administration.
So, the president, what he really wanted to do was to focus on health care. And I noticed that he was able to knock down at least one misconception when he talked about the fact that illegal immigrants, that there is this notion that they would be able to get health care, free health care, and that others would lose their health care benefits as a result. He said that that wasn't true.
But he also said that we're not going to deny people who go to the emergency rooms health care and the kinds of things that they actually need. And then he went on to go ahead and outline what the main thrust of his health care reform plan is: to lower costs and to ensure that more people have health care insurance and that people don't lose their health care, which is what so many people are concerned about and what we heard from some of these questioners earlier.
PHILLIPS: And we should probably just quickly point out for those who might just be tuning in before we go, Suzanne, that Michael Smerconish is a conservative voice, but he did back Obama. We had received a number of e-mails wondering why Smerconish, why was he picked to do this town hall format via the radio.
MALVEAUX: Well, certainly. For, on the president's side, on the White House side, it was a chance to get some critical questions in before a very popular audience, a very popular show and audience that is not particularly very friendly to President Obama. On the host side, it really was a chance to kind of expand his own base, if you will. He's based out of the Philadelphia area, but he also, too, knowing that he's got the president on the line, he's got this national show, and he wants to also gain some more listeners there. And so it worked out for both of them.
PHILLIPS: Suzanne Malveaux, live from the White House. Suzanne, thanks.
MALVEAUX: Sure.
PHILLIPS: And as you heard there in the conversation there with Michael Smerconish, a number of subjects were brought up with the president, including the only man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. He's now a free man. A compassionate release? Well, it depends on whom you ask. We're going to talk about that right after the break.
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PHILLIPS: This is the only man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, responsible for killing 270 people, many of them Americans headed home for Christmas. Well, he's now a free man.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN COHEN, DAUGHTER DIED IN FLIGHT 103 CRASH (via telephone): And that was a plane full of young kids, a family with three little girls, young students. The average age of the plane was 27. It sent ripples of horror and pain and grief which have continued and will continue as long as I am alive and the other family members are alive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: And today, that convicted killer is heading home to Libya terminally ill with cancer at the age of 57. The Scottish justice secretary says he made the decision to release him out of compassion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: It is absolutely sickening. When you say compassion, I feel ill. I feel physically ill. That is the most misplaced compassion I can imagine. I mean, we couldn't weep, couldn't we, for poor old Adolf Hitler, gee, and maybe Mussolini and -- and we should feel sorry for these people, I guess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: President Obama also commented on the release. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We thought it was a mistake. We're now in contact with the Libyan government and want to make sure that if, in fact, this transfer has taken place, that he's not welcomed back in some way, but, instead, should be under house arrest. We've also obviously been in contact with the families of the Pan Am victims and indicated to them that we don't think this was appropriate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: So, now, CNN's Diana Magnay is covering this story for us now in Greenock, Scotland. Diana, what is your take? Is he being released based on compassion and his terminal illness, or do you think there's something else going on behind the scenes?
DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, Kyra, I do think that that is exactly why he is being released. Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, went through all the various options that he had in front of him, and he justified releasing al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds by saying, as a society we base our values and our morals on treating people with compassion, even if they do not show that kind of compassion and mercy towards others. And he said not to do so would be to debase our society.
But he did say that this was done according to judicial guidelines, that al-Megrahi's case met the criteria of compassionate release, which are that you have only three months to live. And he said he consulted Megrahi's doctors. He'd actually been to see him here at Greenock jail at the beginning of August to check for himself his condition. And he said consistently in the press conference that we'd heard earlier, which initiated that release, that al-Megrahi was going home to die -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Diana, is there anything for Scotland to gain here? I mean, victims have come forward and said oil has a lot to do with this.
MAGNAY: Well, Kyra, the UK, which, of course, incorporates Scotland, has business interests in Libya. But it has been pushing those business interests since Tony Blair started thawing diplomatic relations between the two countries in 2004. BP now is investing something like $1 billion in a big exploration project in Libya. Libya has a lot of oil, more so than any other African country.
But that said, this isn't necessarily something that wasn't happening in any case before al-Megrahi's release. Also, Scotland is a devolved government, and this has always been discussed as Scotland's problem that comes under Scottish jurisdiction. Now, Scotland's administration and that of the UK right now are politically quite diametrically opposed. So, to say that this is in Scotland's benefit when Scotland's ties with Libya are limited is a tricky one -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Diana Magnay, appreciate it.
And here are some of the tweets that you've sent us on the release of the Lockerbie bomber. (INAUDIBLE) says, "Compassionate is a word that should not be used. We should be outraged." Isisqueen says, "I'm Scottish and proud of MacAskill. Hard decision. Lockerbie bomber met criteria and will die soon enough. Sentence passed." (INAUDIBLE) says, "The victims and families of Pan Am 103 and the people of Lockerbie never got a chance to say goodbye to their loves ones. Just not right."
Keep your comments coming. You can find me on Twitter, KyraCNN.
Nobody said democracy was easy, but don't complain to Afghans about touchscreens and butterfly ballots. A country at war holds a historic election.
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PHILLIPS: Now let me take you to a place where America has invested lives, money and hope for nearly a decade, Afghanistan, the first front of the war on terror and currently a growing war zone. It just held its second presidential and parliamentary election. Polls closed more than four hours ago. Now the vote counting is under way. And you can bet U.S. officials are watching.
People did turn out despite Taliban threats and allegations of vote tampering. There were scattered rocket attacks, and Afghan officials now report more than two dozen deaths among civilians and security forces on Election Day. Women are among the candidates, too. And they have been seen as a crucial voting bloc, especially since equal rights are still in their infancy in Afghanistan.
There are about 15 million registered voters in Afghanistan, and the country used all its resources to make sure that their votes count, including 3,000-plus donkeys, which along with cars and choppers delivered ballots to polling places. About 165,000 polling and counting staffers are helping out, and they're not letting nightfall keep them from their work. Apparently some are counting the ballots by lantern light.
More on the four main contenders and why you should care about who wins, coming up, in the 2:00 hour.
Barring adults from the streets of Paterson, New Jersey, from midnight to early morning. That city is thinking of thinking of doing just that to battle a surge in deadly shootings. Critics are blasting the plan. We're going to find out what the mayor has to say in a live interview.
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PHILLIPS: Policing out of control or a city just trying to control crime? Residents in Paterson, New Jersey, may be forced to comply with a curfew, a curfew not just for teens out on the town. We're talking about every man, woman and child -- all 147,000 residents -- between midnight and 7:00 a.m. for 60 days. Bottom line, it's dividing the city.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't punish everybody. Just fix what you've got to fix. The car says to serve and protect, not to keep everybody locked in the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want them young boys inside, you know what I mean, inside early, because there's nothing out here. All they're doing is killing each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Pushing the curfew, Paterson Mayor Joey Torres joining me now live from Hackensack.
So, Mayor, why are you -- can you hear me OK, Mayor?
MAYOR JOEY TORRES, PATERSON, NEW JERSEY: Yes, I can, Kyra. PHILLIPS: OK, good. No problem. I just wanted to make sure everything's OK. Tell me why you're proposing this curfew, why you think this is the answer, and what's fueling the crime?
TORRES: Well, Kyra, two things. First of all, the city of Paterson in the last general election, overwhelmingly by 82 percent, voted in favor in a public referendum for us to look into establishing a curfew. And most recently, five homicides -- six homicides in five months, seven shootings in the month of August, two being fatal. The rampant increase in violent crime was a reason why I posed the question to the governing body to support imposing a 60-day temporary curfew.
PHILLIPS: What's fueling this crime? Is it gang activity? Is it a bad economy? What is it?
TORRES: Yes. Our intelligence is telling us that it's rival gang activities, and that's the reason why. Most of it -- 53 percent of all the calls on these crimes, on all crimes, are happening between the time period of late evening and early morning.
PHILLIPS: OK, but by this time last year, you had 13 homicides and 37 shootings, and this year you have pretty much half of the number of homicides. So, why the curfew now?
TORRES: Well, we believe that -- I believe that the curfew is just to give law enforcement another tool to continue to decrease the number of homicides and the number of incidents or victims by gun violence. This tool would allow us to enforce a city ordinance that is against gang loitering, and therefore, that ordinance, combined with the statute, New Jersey statute, permits municipalities for enacting laws that will allow us to protect its citizens and its inhabitants.
The question comes, is this is going to violate individuals' constitutional rights. We are targeting to impose this curfew in 12 areas which the chief and the director of the police department has identified of high criminal gang activity. And therefore, these are public places, not private places. And we have also provisions that allow folks, whether they're walking or they're traveling through town, that is permitted. It's not martial law. It's just a way for us to be able to enforce gang activity, gang loitering activity.
PHILLIPS: Well, let me ask you this, then, Mayor, because you mentioned Glen Brown, the city's acting police director. And according to the northjersey.com article that I found today, that he says that the city's crime rate is actually the lowest it's ever been. In addition, I was reading that you just got $3.2 million to hire more cops as part of the stimulus program. So, why not just build up the police forces in these high-threat areas, bring in more cops and do it that way, versus putting this curfew on? I mean, a lot of people work overnight, and they may suffer the consequences here.
TORRES: Well, we are -- we have provisions for those who are working overnight. Again, Kyra, this is establishing curfew, particularly gang-related loitering that's taking place in 12 areas that have been identified as high criminal activity between the late evening and early hours in the morning.
We just received a $3.2 million COPS grant to hire more police officers. Those police officers, we won't see them hitting the ground at least until about six-months period because they have to be processed and then go into the academy.
We have done things as surveillance cameras and shot spotters and also increased the number of police patrolmen through those late-hour evenings. Again, this curfew, this temporary curfew will allow to give us another tool so that we could provide the safety that we want to provide, the public safety that we want to in order to, again, be proactive and not reactive to continuing gun violence.
PHILLIPS: Well, we'll follow it. Mayor Joey Torres, appreciate your time today.
TORRES: You know, in closing, I would say help can't wait, and the window of opportunity may just pass because this was 60-day curfew we're looking to install.
PHILLIPS: We'll see if it happens. We'll follow up. Mayor, thanks.
TORRES: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: We're about less than two minutes away from the White House briefing. As you know, there's been a lot going on in the CNN NEWSROOM today. Also, we want to see, obviously, we want to see if Robert Gibbs has anything to say with regard to the 30-minute town hall via the radio today that we saw there live at the White House. I'm sure reporters have a lot of questions about that. We'll take it live as soon as it happens. Quick break. We'll be right back.
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